Temperature If you could descend down into the Sun, you would find the temperature and pressure

e increasing until you reached the core of the Sun. At the core, the temperature is 15.7 million kelvin and the pressure is sufficient to support nuclear fusion. This is where protons are merged together to form atoms of helium, releasing tremendous amounts of energy. Highly Magnetic Because the Sun is made of plasma, its also highly magnetic. It has north and south magnetic poles like the Earth, and the magnetic field lines create the activity we see on the surface. The darker sunspots are created when magnetic field lines pierce through the Suns photosphere. Coronal mass ejections and solar flares occur when these magnetic field lines snap and reconfigure. The amount of activity on the Sun rises and falls over an 11-year cycle. At the low point, called solar minimum, there are few, if any sunspots. And then at the high point of the cycle, solar maximum, there are the most sunspots and the greatest amount of solar activity. Protection The Sun does much more to protect us than just provide heat. It lets off solar winds and material that travels out into space. If we did not have the Earths magnetic field, then this material would kill us. However, the solar winds carry out the charged material to the edge of the Solar System where it forms a magnetic field that prevents other interplanetary material from getting in. This barrier is known as the heliopause and without it the Solar System will be battered by cosmic rays. The charged particles carried by solar winds also interfere with satellites, power lines, and other technology on Earth as well as causing the aurora borealis. Sunlight is vital to our planet, and it takes approximately eight minutes for that light to reach Earth. It depends on where the Earth is in its orbit and how far away it is from the Sun at the time.

 The Sun takes about 1 month to rotate once on its axis; however, this is a rough estimate because the Sun is a ball of plasma. Some parts of the Sun rotate faster than other parts, so its hard to say when it has completed a full rotation. PARTS OF THE SUN/COMPOSITION The Sun is composed almost entirely of hydrogen (74%) and helium (25%), with other trace elements. The innermost layer of the Sun is the CORE, where the nuclear fusion reactions are taking place. Outside that is the RADIATIVE ZONE, where photons of gamma radiation created in the core are emitted and absorbed by hydrogen atoms. A single photon can take 100,000 years to finally get through the radiative zone. Outside the radiative zone is the CONVECTIVE ZONE, where bubbles of plasma rise and fall like a lava lamp. The Sun is made up of different layers that actually rotate at different speeds. Because the Sun is more similar to a gas giant in that it is high in helium and hydrogen, it also experiences what is known as DIFFERENTIAL ROTATION. At the outer layers, near the equator it rotates about ONCE every 25.4 days while near the poles it takes up to 36 days to complete one rotation. Sunspots are cooler areas on the surface of the Sun, which last up to a few months and vary greatly in size. Sunspots appear in cycles and sometimes there appear to be none on the Sun at all. Scientists are still trying to learn more about sunspots. Only about 5% of stars in the Milky Way are larger than the Sun; the vast majority are smaller red dwarf stars. Some of the biggest stars can be 100,000 times brighter and contain 100 times more mass. The Sun is also relatively young, a member of the Population I group of stars. Older stars, which formed billions of years before the Sun are Population II stars and have less heavier elements in them. The oldest stars are Population III stars, formed just after the Big Bang, but these are purely theoretical.